Lovely
by behindabruise
Summary: This is all of my luck and all of my heart, in this hand. It’s all I’ve got.” When you love someone, this is all you can do for them as they go. AH/AU E/B. Extreme fluff. You tell me T or M. REVIEW even if you hate it. “I keep stepping on mines, Alice.”


**Trying something a little new here, but I hope you like it! And don't forget to ****REVIEW**** even if you hate it! :)**

"Oh, wow, where . . . where have you been? I've been trying to call you for a whole hour!"

Sitting, on Edward's table, hugging her knees, Alice shouts this at me when I first walk through the front door.

I stutter, "W-what? What's . . . going on? Are you, er, hurt?"

Alice launches from the table, grabbing my wrist. Her frigid little fingers form little manacles tight on my skin. "Come on, let's go. They've already taken him. I was waiting for you."

Shocked. "Who've they taken?"

Alice does not answer my stupid question.

We walk fourteen blocks in silence. Her icy fingers are still tense around my wrists as we travel, as though she is afraid of losing me. Finally, we arrive at Saint Hope's Hospital, an aptly named local infirmary. It's very large. Everyone goes there. We took Alice there whenever she overdosed, which is too many times to count. Jasper, her boyfriend, went there when someone smashed a bottle over his head, and he needed stitches. We took Rosalie there when she was knifed, walking around drunk and alone. And we took Emmett, her romantic inclination, there when he final cracked under the pressure of the DID. Neither Edward nor I have been here. Ever. For anything that involved just ourselves.

It's a very nice place. Communal.

Alice drags me through the front door. The building is both stark and white. There are too many lights. They are so blindingly bright. I cannot see when I walk in. Alice tells the receptionist something in a hushed tone as I slowly try to adjust to the harsh light.

Alice's hand locks around mine again, and drags me down the hallway, to an elevator, to the fifth floor, and down two hallways. Then there is a room and a nurse and lots of beeping. Alice instructs for me to sit still and quiet, and I do so. Alice converses quietly with the nurse. The lights in this corner of the long hall are so much dimmer than the lights on the other side. It's nice but ominous. I'm scared.

Alice passes me as she strolls halfway down the hallway to a vending machine. I watch her insert two coins, and two drinks pop out, just like that. It was so quick and easy.

Comes back, and sits beside me. She hands me a plastic bottle with red liquid in it. "Thanks," I mutter distantly. It's always like this when I visit this hospital – distant. So many strange and sad memories took place here. It's so very odd to me and everyone.

Alice pops open her bottle, which contains green liquid. "Oh, wow," she says in her little voice. She has that tone though. That tone that implies that she doesn't want to talk about something, anything. "Yes. They had coffee, but these were so vibrant, I couldn't resist." She takes a tiny sip, smacks her lips, and then another.

I am not very sure why I am here. Maybe something with Jasper? I don't know. Alice would be bawling though, I am sure, if it was Jasper. And it can't be Emmett or Rosalie, because either of them would already be here for the other. I can't understand it. Who is it then? Who is it that we'd rushed all the way here for?

"Alice, nothing makes sense," I conclude because I couldn't figure out who I was here for.

"I couldn't decide what flavors to get, so I picked my favorite colors. The names are funny. Red Heart and Green Luck." She takes a third sip. "Mmm, pineapple." She's talking too fast, worrying me.

"Alice . . ."

"With a hint of kiwi, I think it is. Oh, wow."

And then I understand everything clearly, like a blindfold has been lifted from my eyes. I see it. It's neither Alice, Jasper, Emmett, Rosalie, or me, Bella, because it is Edward. Alice was in his house. Sitting on his table. She's talking too fast because she doesn't want to talk about what happened to her brother and my only love. She doesn't want to say anything because – I see it in her eyes – she doesn't want to cry for anyone.

"Alice," I start, the distance of understanding filling my voice to the top, "what's wrong with Edward?"

She stares ahead, distant, blank. Her words are too quick, too easy, to masked. "So refreshing. I can feel the taste pounding against my taste buds like tiny steel drums –"

"_Alice_," I hiss. "I don't want to play anymore." No, I don't. I want to know what the fuck's going on. Sigh. Repeat the words inside my head. "What the fuck's going on?"

"I told you." Normal. Her voice is normal. "He had a bit of a headache, wanted to go to the hospital –"

"_Wanted_?" Needed. "What's _wrong _with him?"

"Well, what if I just told him your secret?" She finally looks to me, thick with tears, but I am immediately taken aback by her threat.

"What . . . ?"

"You're not the only one, Bella."

Laughter is like pills and medicine, good for you, except when it is fake and worthless, like mine is. "What are you going on about, Alice? Edward doesn't have any secrets . . . like . . . me. I know everything there is to know about Edward."

"You never saw the pills?"

"Edward's always taking pills. He's always taking pills, and I always tell Edward to stop."

This smile is bitter. "Not those kind that I, you, everyone likes to take. The kind you're suppose to take."

"Why?"

"Because there's something wrong with you." Alice's voice is strong and firm. Grasping. She understands.

This is serious and I don't understand. "What kind of pills, Alice?" I enunciate the words, worry flowing like blood through veins. Blood with little powder in them. Pills.

"If you told him your secret, you would know his."

"I can't tell anyone my secret. You know, you figured it out. I never meant to tell anyone. No one." No. No one.

"He fell on the floor. There was blood from his ear, streaming, smearing his face all over. I didn't know what to do. So I called an ambulance. Because he told me to."

"Alice Brandon?" this stern voice interjects. We look up and see a nurse, her hair pulled back, her expression fierce. But there are worst things than being scared.

Secrets?

Alice jerks her face away, closing her eyes.

"Is there an Alice Brandon here?"

"Here," she says, stable, with eyes still closed.

"Come here please."

She rises. "Why are they calling you then?" Panic, worry, anxiety. Fear. Unleashed in my voice.

Tears like bile in her throat. So hearable. It's scary. "I'll have to explain then. He can't do anything else now. Go on."

That is all, but I understand. She takes my place on the bench when I arise. I look back at her, see the fear in her eyes for both our secrets. "I keep stepping on mines, Alice."

"I know. You can put any face behind a mask." Darting eyes, diverting everything. But how can you?

Turn away, horrified at her words. I walk toward the nurse who waits with a tight smile. As I walk into the room she is standing in the threshold of, I hear Alice wispily say behind me, her voice like wind, "Keep it then. Keep it for Edward. Oh, wow, aunt. _Oh, wow_, Bella, _oh, wow_ . . ." Her "Oh, wow"s are firm and strong. Forceful.

I shut my eyes. Don't think of that now.

The nurse shows me to a room with a few machines and a glass plate window looking into another room. Someone lying in the bed in that room. Fiery bronze hair. Pale skin. Blood-red lips. Spindly fingers. There he is: the sun, the moon. There he is: heart, pump, pump.

The nurse points a grisly finger at him, saying something. I cannot listen though. I only hear, not words, but a heartbeat in my head: Ba-boom, ba-boom. Sure it's not mine, yes.

A nurse with him presses on his head, takes something out of a small plastic bag. I walk in. "Edward . . ."

"Are you the girlfriend?" the nurse who is there, a different one, another one, asks.

So much more than. "Yes." But I'll have to take it.

"Good. He's nearly gone."

"_What?_" Gone, goodbye, forever. No. "Where?"

"Pre-meds." Not to worry. Sweet dreams lay ahead, yes. "He'll be out in a minute. Go on, have a chat." She goes away.

Dilated eyes under hooded lids. The golden color is just barely visible. I already miss it with every bit of my tearing heart. "Edward . . . what's wrong?" Strongly, firmly.

His once powerful, melodic voice is but a wispy strand as he whispers so softly the rift grows wider, "The sky is blue and the grass is green. Good new shit. Everything is . . . c-cool." So out of it, so drugged, so high. Higher than ever. Higher to help this time. It's scared. So out of it.

"What pills do you take?" I'm surprisingly strong-sounding for feeling so vulnerable.

The weakest chuckle. "Everything. Stupid packets I take every . . . day." So out of it.

"_What pills_?" I demand, saddened, scared, leaning forward.

"Shh! It's a secret, no one knows. And don't tell . . . Bella because if you tell Bella, she won't move in with me anymore. She won't love me anymore." Dry-mouthed, it sounds. So out of it.

Wrong, wrong.

I try to speak, but only the meekest whisper, "I might have to have a baby. Yours. Or I might have to give . . ." No. Not anymore. No longer an option. It's _his_.

I cannot say anymore of Secret Secret. I fill the pockets of his finger with mine, and bring his hand to my lips. Kiss it so gently, so softly, so he won't forget me. Ever. Edward, don't forget.

Walk away, into the other room where the two nurses are fiddling with a machine. "Why is he like that?"

"It's the combination of the pre-meds for the surgery."

"_Surgery_?"

"Yes. The swelling in his brain caused by the clot obviously isn't doing him any good. That's why we've decided to keep him under until the operation. Pre-meds. I explained all of this to you . . ." Just tune her out again and watch Edward. Lovely.

Then I hear something of hers pop into hearing like thunder. "It's marked you and the doctor spoke about the hereditary aspect." Flip through important papers on important clipboards. Then I realize there is saline wetness upon my cheeks. I turn to her, and she says sternly, "The father. The father died of the same thing."

Wipe the wetness away. Replenished.

Doors open; many people adorned in scrubs clatter in. Taking his bedside. Taking his machines. Taking his medicine. Taking _him_. Speak the words that I think just at that moment exactly. "What's happening? What are they doing? Edward!"

I turn to the door. "Miss!" says the nurse, but I'm already in the other room with him. Lovely.

They are so quick, leading me to believe he may be gone. Too. Quick. "Edward! Edward!" Lean over the bed to him. Be so much quick then them, all of them. "Oh my god, can you hear me? Edward! What's wrong? _What's wrong_?! What's wrong with him?! Edward!" Two pairs of nurses' hands tugging at my waist as I clutch onto the sides of his bed. They scream at me, "Miss! Out! Now! Go!"

He's wheeled into the hallway. Alice is gone from her bench.

"Please tell me what's wrong with him! Where's he going? Please! _Where are you fucking taking him?! _What are they doing? Edward! _Edward_!" My final words are screeched.

I break through the strong barriers of the two nurses' linked arms, and rush down the hall. _Oh, wow_.

I run up along Edward's bed. The doctors and nurses don't care. They are speaking medical tongue.

"Edward?"

His eyes are closed. I'd think him dead, had he not muttered in a dead voice, "Hey." There's a tiny smile upon his once vibrant lips. They're now colorless. But it's a beautiful smile anyway. "Lovely."

I smile back. And then I think. I look down upon his lifeless, motionless body, bare-chested, needles and wires connected to him. So pale, so beautiful. Lovely. So I think.

Hand to my mouth, kiss it, then away. "This is all of my luck and all of my heart, in this hand. It's all I've got."

I take his hand, and smooth palms against palms. His is frigid, dead. Mine is fiery. I want to warm him up with my luck. So, I press harder, giving everything I have within me. Then I fold it up, as if something tangible is in it. At first he reopens. But I trust him. I was right. He closes his hand, catching it, keeping it.

That's it then. I stop, let him go on. With everything I have, I hope him to be fine. Wheeled farther away.

As I stand there alone, past the doctors and bedrails, I see Edward hold up his hand, fingers poised as if they were holding something valuable, fragile, showing me all of my luck and all of my heart.

I smile just a little bit, and slump against the wall. I wipe away dampness that is falling harder now, and close my eyes, hands upon my expanding midsection. All for him.

Lovely.

Oh, wow.

So out of it.

_Yes, indeed._

**Hard to understand, but try. It requires a little more thinking than most stories here, and I did it on purpose. There was no background. There was just the climax of a little story.**

**OneShot or no? TELL ME IN A REVIEW!**


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